All Hell Breaks Loose After Trump Says Women Should Be "Punished" For Illegal Abortions

Although one might fairly question the methodology behind the polls and whether the questions were designed to elicit a certain type of response, it is worth noting that in three separate surveys (NBC, WSJ, and CNN), Trump’s favorability rating with female voters was 27% or less.

Even if one assumes that the polls were inherently biased, there’s probably some truth to the contention that the things Trump has said about women in the past haven’t done anything to help him when it comes to garnering a large percentage of the female vote and may indeed come back to haunt him in a national contest with Hillary Clinton.

Well on Wednesday, in an MSNBC town hall event, Trump was cornered by host Chris Matthews who asked the GOP frontrunner about his position on illegal abortion.

Trump says "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions. Interview airs tonight at 8pmET.https://t.co/SR3st1X665

Host Chris Matthews presses Trump on anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him, “Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge”

“Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answers

“How about you?” Matthews asks

“I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump says

“I’m asking you,” Matthews says

“I am pro-life,” Trump says

“How do you actually ban abortion?” Matthews asks

“Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump says

Matthews then presses Trump on if he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal

“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump says

“For the woman?” Matthews says; “Yeah,” Trump says, nodding

Trump says punishment would “have to be determined”

“They’ve set the law and frankly the judges, you’re going to have a very big election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it’s a real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important,” Trump says

“When you say what’s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected,” Trump says

Obviously, this was "gotcha" journalism on Matthews' part (once he established that he was referring to illegal abortions he knew he could pin Trump between having to either say women should be punished or that women could break the law with impunity), and as we saw last year with the whole Kurds/Quds Hugh Hewitt debacle, Trump is susceptible to badgering. The other problem here is that it isn't clear that Trump truly believes some of the things he's forced to say as a Republican candidate, which leads to exchanges like that recounted above. "Don't overthink it: Trump doesn't understand the pro-life position because he's not pro-life," a Cruz aid tweeted. Here's Politico with a bit of context:

Trump’s policy idea is a departure from most state abortion restrictions, which don’t impose penalties on the women who get abortions. Typically, any penalties are imposed on the physician who does the procedure.

The anti-abortion movement in recent decades has shied away from the perception that it is “punishing” women for getting abortions. Instead, it has focused on penalties for the physicians who provide them, such as imposing medical or legal restrictions on their practice. In some rare situations, women have faced charges associated with abortions they have attempted on their own.

Having realized this had become a PR fiasco, Trump promptly walked back his comments.

This is a statement released just moments ago, in which the billionaire revises his initial comments, calling the women "victims", and stating it is doctors who should be held legally responsible for performing the illegal act:

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed - like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

But by the time the Trump campaign released that statement it was far too late. The media, women's rights groups, pro-abortion groups, as well as all of Trump's political opponents smelled blood.

"The last person women need to police their health care decisions is someone who sees them not as people, but as ‘fat pigs,’ ‘bimbos’ and ‘disgusting animals,’" Marcy Stech, a spokeswoman for Emily's List, a pro-abortion-rights group said.

So are all the orphaned kids here at home, and in 3rd world nations. Or all the hungry kids here in this country, for example. I don't see half the outcry at making sure they survive a few months or years on as I do at making sure they come out of the womb screaming.

What all these 'churchy people' go on and on about is so antithetical to what they preach. It's simple calculus. A woman would be much less likely to abort her unborn fetus if she didn't think the kid would starve to death before adulthood.

Capitalism in itself is a cruel survival of the fittest type paradigm. Helping the least among us IS NOT of paramount importance. If it were, we'd not have so many in the least catagory.

Don't kill the unborn babies! ......but, I'll be damned if I'm going to help feed the buggers. And no... 20 bucks to Miss Struthers every month doesn't count. At least not if it disturbed as much as you claim.

Think about it? Have some volunteer program where all the anti-abortionists agree... instead of some woman terminated her child, they would adopt it. Yeah, see how many takers you got on that one.

OH, that's right... the planet is already full of unwanted children that nobody wants to take care of.... damn hypocrites.

Down vote me all you want. Every Sunday and often Wednesday, the plate gets passed around. The small town of 5k down the road of me has a church on EVERY corner. This is true for every City, town and village in the nation. One church up in Rogers has a congregation of 16000 people and a main 'campus' of 170k sq ft. I know for a fact that they demand tithe like a credit card bill.

Let me ask you? Where is all that money going to? They are tax exempt. Look into that and you will see how your modern Christian Church has been corrupted and turned into the Church of Capitalism and Beuacracy. Jesus as you speak of him would so not be happy.

Let's say that 100 million people, in this nation, go to church every sunday.. less than one in 3. They give 1$ every week becuase they are all cheap. That's over 5 billion a year. Chances are it's closer to 200-250 billion a year in religious donations. Where is it going?

114.9 billion dollars in declared donations in 2014. so yes, at least 200 billion a year, from one nation. Look at all the other nations in the world... most giving a comprable amount. It's got to be in the trillions, world wide. I call bullhsit on your churches.

You are truly full of shit if you think women are having abortions in this country for lack of food. And just TRY to adopt. I did and it was impossible and a significant wait for a baby. Sure I could have adopted a 14 year old crack head, but that is not of what we speak.

No, a Fetus is a fetus, and a Baby is a baby. It is not a Baby until it's on the verge of Delivery.

What we need, is to change our Birth Control Laws. E.g.

1. Human Reproduction should be made MANDATORY Teaching in ALL schools in the country. NO exceptions to Private or Home-Schooling.

2. Make Contraception readily available. Even the RU-486 pill should be made readily available, if used in the first 6-8 weeks. The 8-10 week period should be under Hospital conditions only (performed by Board-Certified MDs in a Clinic or Hospital).

3. After 10 weeks, I'd make ALL abortions highly illegal (Capital Offense for all parties), with the sole exceptions of Rape and Incest.

Semantics. If the fetus results in a Premature Live Birth, it's still a baby. (Obviously).

Having seen many an Ultrasound images and having read up extensively during the fetal development of my own kids, I share the instinctive repulsion of terminating a pregnancy that is anything greater than 11 or 12 weeks old. It just seems vile and evil -- regardless of theocratic beliefs.

Thus there needs to be an Interim period of fetal development, during which Society (via the State as an Agent-Advocate for the fetus) protects its development until it is born (Vaginal or C-section).

The interests and rights of the Mother and Fetus are thus balanced, rather than degrading the fetal status to a "Condition" to be removed at will. IMO.

what about if carrying the fetus to full term would endanger the life of the mother and baby? what about if the mother contracted a virus or was exposed to a pollutant that caused late term defects that rendered the fetus a vegetable requiring permanent assistance to live? what about a pharmacutical company marketing a drug that in future is found to induce late term miscarriages and they hid that information?

theres a whole lotta heads gonna roll over grey areas with that pro life line in the sand plan of yours....

"Cecily Kellogg, 44, a writer who lives near Philadelphia, says that was the situation she faced when she was nearly six months pregnant with twin boys in 2004 and developed severe preeclampsia. One fetus had already died and "my liver had shut down, my kidneys had shut down and they were expecting me to start seizing at any minute," she says. The doctors said they had to quickly dilate her cervix and perform an abortion to save her. "I fought it," she says. "But they told me I would die — that it was either me and my son or just my son.""

This is getting absoutely disgusting to watch. Who the fuck would have asked Obama or Clinton questions like this and hammered at them like this? He is pro life. If there was a law that siad it was illegal then there is a penalty for breaking the law. What the hell kind of a question is this?

Where's the question for Hillary..."so just to get this straight, your cool if the doctor pulls the head of a 9 month old fetus through the vagina and drills through the scull...is this OK with you Hillary?"

I wouldn't bet on that. Do you have any idea how many people will walk away from the Dem's once they realize what the party really stands for? Maybe i am wrong, but it puts many dems at odds with their party. How can the Catholic Church support Hitlery or Snoozey now that they both stated that they are for abortion, not to mention mormons and the rest?

Because the Church has been "Owned" by ZioLibs, who have threatened to bring down their House (over the child sex scandals), if (a) the German Pope Ratzenberger does not retire, and (b) a far more worldly Pope is not elected.

Last night, during the CNN Town Hall Debate (with Anderson Cooper), he stumbled when a GI asked him what his "Top 3 National Priorities" were. Instead of rattling off a readily-versed response, he said National Security, National Security, National Security. Even I was not impressed. He then paused and said: Security, Education, Health. Cooper then tripped him up by asking how the Fed.gov can ensure Education, if it's going to be done as the Local or State level. Ooops! Or how the Fed.Gov is going to improve Health Care, if they wash their hands of Obamacare and all health care. Ooops!

Clearly he was caught flat-footed, when he should have been prepared. What he SHOULD have said, was something like: